In recent years, as an imaging apparatus such as a digital still camera, a digital video camera, and a camera built in a mobile phone is spread, contents such as still images or moving images that have been photographed at various events such as trips or wedding ceremonies are increasing.
In addition, people have an increasing opportunity to present photographed contents on screens of TVs or mobile terminals, and enjoy the contents sharing with other people such as friends, acquaintances, family members, and lovers.
As such occasions increase, there are proposed many methods for automatically selecting and presenting appropriate contents according to the users who browse the shared contents. For instance, there is proposed a technology of prioritizing presentation of a content including face information analogous to user face information, based on the user face information designated by the browser user (see e.g. patent literature 1).
Further, there is proposed a technology of calculating a degree of intimacy indicating the degree of closeness between subject persons, based on subject person information (such as the distance between persons, the frequency of appearance, and the number of persons) of the contents, and of prioritizing presentation of a content including the browser user, or including a user having a high degree of intimacy with a user designated by the browser user (see e.g. patent literature 2).
However, in both of patent literatures 1 and 2, the degree of intimacy for use in determining the priority of a content is calculated solely based on the content. As a result, as the number of group photographs increases, for instance, a person who actually does not have a high degree of intimacy may be misjudged to have a high degree of intimacy. In this way, in the conventional art, the actual human relationship in the real world has not been sufficiently reflected. Thus, the output result on contents has not always been an optimum output result for browser users (hereinafter, called as shared users) who browse the contents while sharing the contents.
Further, in both of patent literatures 1 and 2, only the degree of intimacy between a shared user and a subject person has been regarded as a factor that determines the priority of a content photographed in the past, and the degree intimacy between shared users has not been taken into consideration. Accordingly, in the case where a content is shared between two or more shared users, output of a content including the shared users that has been photographed during a time period when the shared users were remote from each other may be prioritized.